IDF works to safeguard Israel's farms and schools

“We’ve seen in this war that there are many, many ways to help the country without being a [combat] soldier,” Lt. Hila Wilf, a company commander in the IDF preparation unit of the national mission chapter says.

Normally, Wilf’s work in the IDF entails going around the country to speak with high school students about their upcoming army service.

The preparation unit works to educate students on what to expect on their first day in the army and helps them make decisions about what kind of role they’d like to be in, whether it be in combat, intelligence, or anything else.

Since October 7, however, the IDF’s national mission chapter has been focused on a slightly different mission.

Chapter's focus has changed post-October 7

Now, they help with the temporary schools that have been established for children displaced from their communities as well as on the farms that have lost their workers in the wake of the Hamas terrorists’ onslaught on southern Israel.

“That’s our mission right now: to offer some help for all the people who have been moved from their homes. They are evacuees and we are helping them,” Wilf said. We opened new schools in Eilat, in the Dead Sea [area], and all over the south.”

The company commander emphasizes that they’re focused on providing routine for the children at a time when their lives are so tumultuous.

The impact, and the response from the kids, the IDF lieutenant says, makes it all worth it. 

“You can see the brightening in their eyes. There is an understanding there. Something you can’t see in formal things like a teacher at their school. But when the students see someone who can be their big brother... this is a very beautiful thing to see.”

The other half of the national mission chapter’s ongoing efforts include providing aid to farms in the form of workers.

IDF soldiers from the chapter show up every day at farms. Hamas terrorists, according to NPR, murdered 39 Thai workers and kidnapped dozens more on October 7th.

Many other workers, particularly foreign workers, have since returned to their home countries. Consequently, Israel was posed with the possibility of a serious agricultural catastrophe. 

Suddenly, fruits and vegetables on southern Israeli farms were at risk of rotting in the fields because of a lack of workers to harvest them, potentially creating a food crisis. 

“Now we are working on 20 farms in the Negev [region],” Wilf said. Soldiers alternate between farms according to the farms’ individual needs.

“We don’t do anything with animals, it’s only fruits and vegetables, whatever the farmer is growing.

Any job regarding the crops that the farmer needs to be done, the soldiers of the IDF national mission chapter are there.

Wilf describes harvesting cherry tomatoes and potatoes herself. 

Additionally, Wilf and her soldiers enlist the help of volunteers from the student bodies of the schools they assist in to help with this work.

All of the labor done is for the benefit of the farmer and to ensure that the farm itself is able to survive. The IDF neither benefits nor asks for anything in return.

The national mission chapter operates with two goals, one short-term and one long-term, in mind.

The short-term goal is simply to continue to aid farms and students however they can. The long-term goal, however, is to be able to move those who have been displaced from their homes, both in the north and in the south, back into their communities.

Until then, Wilf affirms that the IDF will continue to provide support for as long as they are needed.

“We will stay in those schools, in those hotels, in those farms as long as they need us. That’s the main thing we want to show them, that we will be there as long as they need us.”